Value Added Tax (VAT) and e-business

Federal, state, and local governments are punishing online business today. The punishment is in the form of multiple taxes online business needs to collect and render to the various government agencies. If your business is located in Pennsylvania and someone who lives in Florida purchases a product on your e-business site, you need to collect and render the sales tax to Florida.

Collecting sales tax is not a new concept. However, traditional business was only required to deal with the state in which the business resided. Online business is required to collect and render sales taxes in the state where the customer resides.  The problem for online business is not collecting the tax, but keeping track of the various state tax levels. A value added tax (VAT) would remedy the situation.

VAT would enable a fixed rate to be set for ALL states, making tax collection and rendering easier for the online business. Under the current tax structure e-business is forced to do the following:

  • Collect and render the tax themselves, which means knowing all the state and local tax rates and sending the tax to the appropriate agency.
  • Hire an agency to keep track of the sales tax.
  • Offshore the business, which would require the state and local agencies to go after your customer for the tax.
  • Don’t collect the taxes and become part of the underground economy.
  • Don’t start an online business or engage in online sales.

E-business wants to comply with every law. However, the current tax structure penalizes the entrepreneurial spirit that once made this Country great. A VAT would enable the entrepreneur to pursue his or her dream of self-reliance and provide much needed competition in the market place today. Why make the online business suffer for state and local government over spending?

Thoughts?

Mike Kniaziewicz, MIS

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